A 20-year-old Texas man has been hit with a sprawling set of state and federal criminal charges following alleged coordinated arson attacks targeting the private San Francisco residence of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and the artificial intelligence company’s headquarters earlier this month. Daniel Moreno-Gama is scheduled to make his first court appearance for state charges during an arraignment scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, where he will formally hear allegations that include two counts of attempted murder.
Alongside the state-level charges, Moreno-Gama also faces multiple federal felony counts, including unregistered firearm possession and attempted destruction of property through the use of explosive devices. Court documents filed by the U.S. Department of Justice confirm that investigators recovered written materials from the suspect that express extreme opposition to artificial intelligence development, and openly call for violent criminal acts to be carried out against AI industry executives, board members and investors.
Authorities allege the series of violent acts began shortly after 4 a.m. local time Friday, when Moreno-Gama set fire to an exterior security gate at Altman’s residential property before fleeing the scene on foot. Roughly one hour later, the suspect is accused of launching a second attack at OpenAI’s central San Francisco headquarters, the facility where the company develops its industry-defining ChatGPT AI chatbot. According to sworn statements in the federal criminal complaint, on-site security personnel observed the suspect attempting to smash the building’s glass entrance doors with a heavy chair before the attack was interrupted.
When law enforcement officers took Moreno-Gama into custody, they recovered a cache of incendiary devices, a large container of kerosene, and a lighter from his possession, the Department of Justice confirmed. The written materials found with the suspect outline deep fears over existential risks that unregulated AI development could pose to humanity, including one section titled “Some more words on the matter of our impending extinction.” In the documents, Moreno-Gama allegedly wrote that if he was going to urge others to carry out lethal attacks against AI industry figures, he must lead by example to prove his sincerity. The documents also included a compiled list of full names and home addresses for CEOs, board members and major investors at leading AI companies across the country. Surveillance camera footage collected from both attack locations clearly places Moreno-Gama at the scene of both incidents, prosecutors confirmed in their criminal complaint. Crucially, no people were harmed during either alleged attack.
In an official statement following the suspect’s arrest, Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche emphasized that violence has no place in ideological or policy debate. “Violence cannot be the norm for expressing disagreement, be it with politics or a technology or any other matter,” Blanche said. “These alleged actions – which damaged property and could well have taken lives – will be aggressively prosecuted.”
OpenAI’s official response echoed that stance, noting that healthy, good-faith public debate over responsible AI development is a necessary part of building technology that benefits the public through democratic frameworks. “To ensure society gets AI right, we need to work through the democratic process, and we welcome a good faith debate,” the company said. “But there is no place in our democracy for violence against anyone, regardless of the AI lab they work at or side of the debate they belong to.”
While local and federal authorities initially declined to publicly confirm the target of the residential attack, an OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the information to the BBC last Friday, verifying that the residence targeted belonged to Altman. Speaking at a press conference on Monday announcing the state charges, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins expressed relief that no harm came to those targeted. “I’m grateful that Mr Altman, his family, and his employees were uninjured in these attacks and are safe,” Jenkins said.
Earlier on Monday, FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed via a post on X that FBI agents had carried out a raid on a location in Texas connected to the incident, as part of the multi-jurisdiction investigation into the attacks.
The alleged attacks come just one week after Altman was the subject of a high-profile investigative profile in *The New Yorker* that raised public questions over his personal trustworthiness and suitability to lead a company developing transformative, widely debated AI technology. Hours after the attack on his home, Altman posted a comment on social media referencing what he called the “incendiary article about me,” and called for broader de-escalation of public rhetoric around AI: “we should de-escalate the rhetoric and tactics and try to have fewer explosions in fewer homes, figuratively and literally.” Altman later walked back the comment, posting a follow-up on X stating he regretted linking the profile article to the alleged attack, after receiving widespread criticism from social media users for drawing the connection.
The 2022 launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT sparked a global surge of public interest in generative AI chatbot technology, triggering a tidal wave of billions in venture capital investment across the global AI industry. Despite the massive financial inflow, the rapid pace of unregulated AI development has drawn growing skepticism from experts, activists and observers concerned about safety, ethical and societal risks.